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March 8th, 2013

The Golden State Warriors have signed forward Malcolm Thomas to a 10-day contract, the team announced today. Thomas joins the Warriors from the Los Angeles D-Fenders of the NBA Development League, marking the 22nd Call-Up of the 2012-13 NBA season.

Thomas, 24, appeared in just one game for the D-Fenders, posting 13 points, 17 rebounds, four assists, three steals and one block in 41 minutes versus Texas on Wednesday, March 6.

After going undrafted out of San Diego State in the 2011 NBA Draft, Thomas played in the D-League for much of last season, earning First Team All-NBA D-League and All-Defensive Team honors by averaging 13.4 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game in 25 games combined with Los Angeles, Rio Grande Valley and Austin. Additionally, he earned a pair of Call-Ups during his rookie campaign, signing briefly with both the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets.

After spending another fourth quarter on the bench, Rockets guard Jeremy Lin said he understood Rockets coach Kevin McHale sticking with Patrick Beverley at point guard, even if watching in close games is still not easy.

“Every player understands it’s just a matter of riding the hot hand,” Lin said. “For me, or any athlete it’s just a matter of not getting too high or too low. I feel like in the time I’m out there, I’m playing my brand of basketball. I’m happy about that. Whatever time I get, I have to keep playing the way I play. At this point, we’re making this playoff push. We’re really trying to get these wins.

“It’s hard for any athlete to sit there when it matters. It’s not about individual egos right now. Obviously, everyone wants to be out there. One through 15 everybody wants to be out there, but that’s just not the way it works sometimes. It’s just buying into the team. We really are a team, we enjoy being around each other. That makes it easy to sacrifice for each other.”

Lin has not played in the fourth quarter of the Rockets’ past three games, sitting out late in close games against the Magic and Mavericks and in the home rout against the Mavericks. Rockets center Omer Asik also sat out the fourth quarter against the Mavericks, but also said he was unconcerned with his own playing time.

And as in the glory days of 2009, the Pepsi Center crowd cheered with pride.

Chauncey was back home Thursday night, and PA announcer Kyle Speller gave the Clippers guard a special shout-out during pregame introductions.

Billups plays for Los Angeles, but he’s always this town’s guy, a former George Washington High School standout who starred at Colorado and had two stints with the Nuggets, the second featuring a trip to the 2009 conference finals.

“I just think Chauncey’s a winner — he’s a class human being, he cares about the game, he cares about the city of Denver,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “He’s just one of those guys, whenever he retires, I’m sure the Nuggets will figure out how he can be part of the Nuggets organization if he wants to be part of the Nuggets.”

The Nuggets, led by the super speedy Ty Lawson, are really fast. Denver entered Thursday’s home game against the Clippers as the No. 1 team in the NBA with 19.7 fast-break points, 57.7 points in the paint and ranked second to the Clippers with 19.5 points off turnovers.

Asked about defending this type of offensive onslaught, Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said, “You have to load up, and when our guys shoot 3s, we have to start getting back, especially if you are in the corner you have to start sprinting back and loading up and finding a man. It doesn’t particularly have to be your man, but you have to stop the ball and find where the threats are. It can’t be a once in a while thing; it has to be every time.”

I asked George if there’s a certain way to coach hustle, notably with his big men. Here’s how he put it:

“The best way to coach it is, they get rewarded if they stay on the court if they run and they don’t stay on the court if they don’t,” Karl said. “That’s the simple philosophy. Big guys have to run and rebound, and if they don’t, we play small.”

Just like last summer, this is shaping up to be a very busy summer for the Dallas Mavericks.

The Mavs are still in search of a top-flight talent who will make Dirk Nowitzki the team’s second-best player. But whether they can lure Dwight Howard, Chris Paul — or any superstar — to Dallas remains to be seen.

“The challenge is the same annual things since I got here,” said Donnie Nelson’ the Mavs’ president of basketball operations. “Whether it’s through the draft, trade or free agency, to get the most and right kind of talent and give the talent an opportunity to come together.

“And hopefully there’s not too much change. But that’s part of our industry, especially with the new CBA (collective bargaining agreement).”

The Denver Nuggets routed the surging Los Angeles Clippers 107-92 on Thursday night, riding 21 points from Ty Lawson and 20 from Danilo Gallinari to their 12th straight home win.

Seven Nuggets scored in double figures as Denver won its seventh straight overall and improved to 27-3 at home, tied with the Miami Heat for best in the NBA.

Despite 19 points from Matt Barnes and 17 from Blake Griffin, the Clippers saw their five-game road winning streak come to an end.

More importantly, they lost the season series to the Nuggets 2-1, a tiebreaker that could come into play if Denver can catch them for the third seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Right now, the Nuggets are in fifth, behind Memphis…

Both teams had 11 turnovers, Denver outscored Los Angeles by a dozen points from long range and Paul was good, not great, scoring 16 points and dishing out 10 assists, one fewer than Lawson had…

Jamal Crawford, who had a game-high 22 points in the Clippers’ win over Denver on Christmas Day, sat out with a sore left ankle that he injured Wednesday night in L.A.’s 117-101 win over Milwaukee in which he scored 25 points…

Denver is 27-11 against Western Conference teams. … The Clippers have won six of the last nine games against the Nuggets.